Two Tamil calendars this year have created a charming marriage of the arts. Publishing house Kalachuvadu pays delightful tribute to food in Tamil literature using three tropes: an extract from a modern work, an impressionist account of the same dish by the compiler of the calendar, Prashanthy Sekaram, and a brief quote from a classical Tamil work. Each page also has an image of the dish with an evocative charcoal sketch as background.
The second one we loved honours Tamil artist K.M. Adimoolam, who dissolved not just the isolated silos in which art and literature worked but also broke barriers between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’. Each page of this beautiful calendar features one distinctive sketch of a Tamil writer made by Adimoolam, accompanied by one enlarged alphabet from the distinctive, bold Tamil font he created.
ADVERTISEMENT
***
Fill it in
Hachette India has launched a series of rather gorgeous colouring books and yes, they finally showcase patterns and motifs that are distinctly Indian. Called Colouring India, the series has books themed around Indian weaves or rangolis with their distinctive paisleys, parrots and curlicues, and you also have books around Gond art and Madhubani drawings. If these aren’t guaranteed stress-busters, we don’t know what is.
ADVERTISEMENT